Ever want to show someone how to do something on a computer or add voice to
your powerpoints? Then Camtasia Studio 6 from Techsmith is the program
you want to use.
First you load the program:
Also when you install, make certain you select the add-in for PowerPoint.
This way you can record your voice into a PowerPoint show. This can be
used to create a stand along slide show with your narration (with many
more features and adjustments than just adding voice to PowerPoint from
PowerPoint).
After you load the program, I would suggest you go to the Techsmith website
and they have very good short videos on how to use their product:
They are on: Camtasia Studio 6 Overview, How to Record,
How to Edit, How to Produce, How to Share.
The first thing I did was to watch the Camtasia Studio 6 Overview video.
It gave me a quick tutorial (3:50 minutes) on how to start, record, edit,
etc. that was hugely useful.
From reviewing that video, I was able to generate the
Green Screen Wizard software demo (click
here to see the video I made), using the Camtasia Studio 6, a Logitech
headset with microphone (about $25). This enabled me to create a quick demo /review of the
product that I put on our website (after
spending a few minutes to look up how to generate a flash file) and I was
also able to to generate a file to upload to Youtube (shown below).
Now I did make a few mistakes about loosing the focus off to the right,
but for a first try it was pretty good.
Below I will detail how to create
a flash file to be able to upload it to a website with controls.
Creating a Flash file for a Website:
Go to Produce, then select
Custom Production Settings:
Then hit Next:
Select Flash Output, then hit Next. You can
select many different templates - I just used Express Show the first time.
Then hit Next. On this screen, select
Options to add author and copyright information (always suggested to add
this information). If you want to generate a webpage, select the Embed Video
into HTML. You can also hit the PREVIEW button at the bottom to see what all
this looks like. Luckily I only did a short video, so the preview did not
take long.
On the next screen, you name the file and location and it also shows you all
the file names it will create, which is nice, since you need the names of
the files to figure out which ones to upload to your website:
These files will be
created upon production:
Folder:
Z:\Data\netsurfernews\GreenScreenWizard\
Files:
GreenScreenWizard.swf
GreenScreenWizard.html
swfobject.js
expressInstall.swf
Hit Finish and it renders
your flash file, ready for your website.
I found Camtasia
Studio 6 easy to learn and use. It has many features that I have not yet
used but I know I will use the adding voice to PowerPoint and recording
more videos to put on our website or upload to Youtube.
I woud recommend
practice and learn this program using a SHORT video to learn all of the
great functions of Camtasia Studio 6.
Camtasia Studio 6 will run on Windows 7 (that is where I used it). The
cost for Camtasia Studio 6 is $299. You might want to check around-
sometimes you can get it bundled with Snag-it (screen capture and sharing)
for a price close to the price of Camtasia Studio. You can also purchase
Camtasia for a MAC ($99-$149).
For the price I think this is an awesome
program and much cheaper than the Adobe Captive for $799, and from what I
have gathered from my friends who have used both, Camtasia is easier to
use. I love the easy video tutorials (did I mention FREE) from Techsmith
that really get to the meat of using the product without spending lots of
hunting, googleing to figure out how to do things. I highly recommend
Camtasia!
